2,000 roads across Devon to get winter damage repairs

Schemes will be funded through the £9.3m Winter Damage Grant from the Department for Transport

Over 2,000 roads across Devon are earmarked to be fixed following damage caused by severe winter weather.



The schemes will be funded by the £9.3m Winter Damage Grant that Devon County Council received from the Department for Transport (DfT) earlier this year.

Around 125 miles of roads in more than 50 communities across Devon will be repaired.



The County Council’s highways teams have carried out an extensive assessment of potholes and structural damage to its road network, taking in all of Devon’s 29 market towns, a further 13 towns and parishes, and all of the county’s winter pre-salting routes.



In carrying out its evaluation, Devon County Council identified urgent repairs totalling £14m which will be carried out this year.



The DfT grant is being used for permanent repairs rather than pothole filling, and schemes have been selected where structural patching or resurfacing will ensure that roads will be more resilient to potholes forming again.

The work focuses on the busiest routes across Devon, and roads in towns where five or more potholes on a 100 metre stretch of road have been repaired in the previous 12 months.

Among the areas where work will be carried out are Exeter, where more than £1.5m will be spent on repairs, Tiverton, which will receive more than £1m of attention to its roads and Bideford and Northam, which will receive over £690,000.



Other investment includes more than £620,000 in Cullompton, almost £430,000 in Crediton, and over £261,000 in Sidmouth.

All of the schemes will be scheduled for completion before the end of March 2012.

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation, said: "This additional funding has allowed us to take a thorough look at all of our roads, to target where it’s most needed, and people right across Devon will benefit from this."

Further information:
Devon County Council